Quinnipiac, Mon., Nov. 3, 6:30p, FS-1

Eric said:
One thing I noticed at the end with a couple minutes left, whoever was on the floor were still playing very aggressively and diving for loose balls. Loved to see that as I am sure Pitino was paying attention.
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Last year he talked about how the team didn't have a total killer instinct & would let teams back in games or not come out right away. I noticed that too and was thinking that maybe this will be different this year. I was very impressed by their chemistry and mental makeup.
 
dk423 said:
Last year he talked about how the team didn't have a total killer instinct & would let teams back in games or not come out right away. I noticed that too and was thinking that maybe this will be different this year. I was very impressed by their chemistry and mental makeup.
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Funny I was thinking the same thing about team chemistry. There clearly were some issues in that regard on last year's team at least Early in the year. Pitino has repeatedly said that he has never coached a better group of young men; too early to draw conclusions but this may turn out to be his best team chemistry wise and as we all know that is super important.
 
Some random thoughts from last nights game:
- Really impressed with Hopkins ability to dribble drive and score. He also made a nice pass to Zuby for a slam when they closed on him. They will be a lethal combination as they learn to play off each other.
- Mitchell is a better version of Aaron Scott. Total stud on the defensive end and boards. Granted he needs to work on his mid range game, but he’ll still contribute points off the break and on put backs. That’s all we need given the scoring output from the rest of team, as we saw last night.
- Darling is by far our best (only?) point guard. His vision and court awareness will allow us to make great use of the offensive talent we have. I thought his defense exceeded expectations last night, but we’ll need to see how he does against bigger, faster athletes at the point. Pitino said in his presser that he started Ian because of his ability to guard the point on ball, but said he needs to improve his off ball defense. It wasn’t an issue last night, but it will be interesting to see how Pitino mixes and matches his personnel at the point on both ends of the floor moving forward.
- One of the keys to our success last year was our relentless switching defense, particularly on the press which helped wear down opponents and take over in the second half. Outside of Zuby and Mitchell, does this team have the personnel to do the same this year? It was hard to tell last night.
- Love Sanon’s offensive game, but the jury is definitely out on the defensive end. Hopefully this will improve over time under Pitino‘s tutelage.
- Ayo played great and it seems like the team loves him. He and Zuby will lead by example this year.
 
I think even Tamba knows he's here for 5 fouls that he probably won't even be able to use, and to make us all proud of his GPA.
 
The thing I liked most about this game was being up by 15 at the first media timeout. No letting the lesser team hang around, and give them confidence (and the fans, nerves).

We buried them right from the start. Frankly, it was over by that point in the game.
 
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